I feel like I'm reading my own post,lol. I deal with the same thing everyday except there are 4 kids. I clean everyday and do all the laundry,only to come in the next day to find clothes,towels,toys,shoes,etc. thrown all over their bedrooms and the rest of the house. My charges are 14,12,10 and 7. I told MB one day that I felt that they were old enough to throw their dirty clothes in the hampers in their rooms,but she just shrugged her shoulders. The kids have so many clothes that when I go to put clean laundry away there's not enough room in their dressers and closets. Almost every Monday I come in to more new clothes/shoes in shopping bags. It's crazy!! The way I deal with it now is just to get done what I can get done while I'm there. I keep the kitchen and bathrooms clean by cleaning the messes as soon as they happen. I love working for the family and they're great so I just do what I can do in the housekeeping dept. My main role is to care for the kids. Cleaning the mess as I go along helps. The clutter is a different story. If I have any extra time to clean out one of the massive kitchen cabinets or organize a kid's bedroom I'll do it but if I don't, I don't. I know exactly how you feel though. It's hard to work in all the disorganization.

Yeahhh, I don't take those jobs because I can't handle the anxiety. I'm very tidy and I don't want to worry that the toddler will find a nail, piece of broken glass, or small coins when my back is turned (all of those things happened to a friend of mine when she worked in conditions similar to yours). You can absolutely say that as the children are adolescents now, a central part of your job is to be teaching them life skills and it's impossible to emphasize organization and cleanliness when the home doesn't reflect those values.. If you really want to keep the position, do a little research on affordable house cleaners and offer her their names and phone numbers when you talk to her. And be prepared to leave; she may not value those character traits but the rest of us know how important they are.

Anonymous wrote:I'd tell them I cannot work in these conditions and if they do not improve in X weeks, I will have to resign. Assuming you truly cannot work for slobs (I cannot!). There are occasional messes (or when new baby is in the house and no one is sleeping) and total slobs, know the different.

+1. MB here. It sounds very unreasonable for that family to be so messy. We have two kids under 3.5 (youngest is a tornado), but DH and I put away everything every night (weekends we may wait until Sunday). I also stress to DH that we need to tidy up our kitchen (main place where family hangs out including our nanny when youngest goes down for a nap), which includes emptying trash cans and recyclables and making sure absolutely no breakfast dishes are waiting for her in the morning before she arrives. Sometimes when things get crazy those rooms may not look as tidy as they should, but most of the time we try to keep them neat. She's really great about helping with those things during the week while she's there (e.g., emptying recyclables as the bin gets full from empty milk bottles and cardboard boxes (diapers)).

This is our nanny's place of work and we don't want her to be unhappy/stressed out having to tidy up after us. Believe me, the kids make plenty of mess during the time they are with her, and she always leaves things very neat (few times she forgot to put away cups that she used, etc.) but we understand that she was busy running around after our two young kids and forgot, just like we may have a few times run out w/o putting everything away.

To the other nanny who worked for people with roaches, UGH. I can't believe you lasted as long as you did. I don't care if I liked my bosses, I would never be able to feel comfortable/safe in a house that unsanitary.

I'd tell them I cannot work in these conditions and if they do not improve in X weeks, I will have to resign. Assuming you truly cannot work for slobs (I cannot!). There are occasional messes (or when new baby is in the house and no one is sleeping) and total slobs, know the different.

Have you thought of talking to MB about taking on some extra hours and duties? If the kids are older then I would be more than happy to help make returns (as long as I was being paid for my time) That wouldn't solve everything, but could help with some of the clutter.

Anonymous wrote:If someone is working in your house then you have an oibligation to leave it clean, at least the rooms that person uses.

+1

If someone is working in your house then you have an oibligation to leave it clean, at least the rooms that person uses.

I would move on. I've worked with several families over the years (long time nanny). Most were extremely tidy and had professional cleaners come to the house twice per month at the bare minimum. Two families were much messier (interestingly enough, both of those families also had teenagers).

One family was just generally messy. I spent HOURS during nap time (while teen siblings were in school) organizing and cleaning, even though I hadn't really been asked to, I just wanted to help. In particular, their play areas were disasters, with just a million tiny random toy pieces all over. They already had nice shelves and baskets (things were just thrown in randomly), over the course of a week I meticulously sorted and organized toys, putting them into the baskets and labeling the baskets, etc. Monday I showed up and it was literally as if I had done nothing; everything was just as disorganized as ever.

The other family had only teenagers (no young children); just an after school type gig. They were hoarders. Like, BAD hoarders. Easily could've been on the show. Honestly if their children had been any younger OR if they weren't close friends with the clients I worked with in the mornings at the time (who I think must have never stepped foot into their friends house!), I would've called CPS.

I again, went out of my way to try to help them. When I started, their basement was so full of dirty clothes that had been just thrown down there that they completely covered the stairs and floor, and in some corners were stacked floor to ceiling (it really seemed like they bought new clothes instead of washing used clothes). Anyway, I did load after load of laundry. I stacked up laundry baskets outside their respective rooms with big "CLEAN" signs on them. Then I realized that most of them couldn't even reach their dressers or closets. They had two HUGE dogs who shed horribly, and the clean laundry sat in those baskets for days (weeks?) until they were just completely covered in dog hair again.

The kitchen was a similar disaster; dishes piled up that hadn't been washed in weeks. The usually just brought home take out and really didn't cook or use anything other than plastic plates and utensils. They had roaches in the kitchen. I washed filthy, utterly disgusting dishes, and put them away, and tried my best to help keep their home livable. To no avail. Every day I would show up and they would've dirtied more dishes and just left them there. I would do all dishes before leaving Friday at 7, and return Monday to dishes left from later Friday night and all weekend.

I REALLY wanted to help them. But, there was nothing I could do. The first family, well, it was certainly messy and disorganized, but it was livable and ultimately there were many other issues I had with that family that were much worse deal breakers than the mess (like refusing to offer guaranteed hours, changing the schedule last minute constantly, the fact that MB started her youngest on SODA at 20 months, oh, right, and the fact that they were always very late in paying me). The second family though, that mess was an UNHEALTHY environment (physically and mentally), and not livable, and a definite deal breaker.

Bottom line here:
1. YOU CANT CHANGE THEM!
2. Decide for yourself if this is livable/safe or not.
3. Even if livable/safe, is it a deal breaker?
4. Move on if you need to.

It looks to me as if your Mom Boss is a compulsive hoarder. And that in itself is a mental disorder (no pun intended) that is way above & beyond your expertise to help.

It sounds to me as if she purchases things because she is either bored in her spare time or she has this compulsion to fill a void in her life. Again...Her behavior is treatable, but only by a professional unfortunately.

It would be rude if you told her she needs to clean her house more often, that she needs to stop purchasing so much junk online, etc. After all, that is not one of your job duties here.

So you either will have to deal w/the clutter when you are there or seek another position.

Even if you recommended she seek professional help, she may not take you up on it.

As a neat-freak, this would drive me nuts.

This is unacceptable.. You're dealing with well bodied people. Stop cleaning up after them, I'm sure she isn't paying you for that anyway, is she?

12 and 13 yr. Old kids should be packing their own lunches, cleaning up after themselves, and keep house clean.

Honestly I'd stop cleaning up and have a come to Jesus talk with ALL of them. The kids aren't enough to pack their own lunch so if they want you to do it the counters have to be in the exact same condition you left them. If not you won't pack their lunches. Then follow through.

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Bless you for putting up with that for so long. Mom clearly has mental health challenges.

Will the kids clean up after themselves when you tell them to?

OP here.
Yes, they will. One of them always listens the first time he is told. The girl is like her mom. It's really challenging with her.
Most of the times she does what I ask her to do. Sometimes I have to tell her a few times. Sometimes she will call her mom (she will sneak her cell phone upstairs and call so I don't hear) and ask her if she has to do "x,y,z" and mom tells her she doesn't have to or that she can do it "later." As you can imagine, "later" never happens.
And the minute I leave, they have absolutely no responsibilities whatsoever.
That's why the house is the way it is in the morning.

Wow. Bless you for putting up with that for so long. Mom clearly has mental health challenges.

Will the kids clean up after themselves when you tell them to?

I absolutely love my nanny family.
I feel extremely lucky to have them in my life. It's been almost 2 years and things are going great.

There is ONE thing that I don't know how to deal with.
The house is an absolute mess.
Every morning I have to clean counter messes so I have space to make breakfast/school lunches.
When I leave in the evening, the kitchen is spotless. When I come in the morning, it looks like a tornado went through the house. MB is a single mom and there are two kids - 12 and 13.
MB has a problem with online shopping (her own words) - we have boxes dropped off at the house nearly every day. The stuff she gets is just crap that nobody needs or extra crap that they already have but nobody can find it. If kids don't like the things she gets (or if they don't fit), they just stay home and get moved around with all the other stuff. Everything gets left wherever it's used - when new things are unpacked from boxes, all the little papers from the box end up right there - on the floor, stairs, table, wherever. Nothing gets returned, because MB never does it. I made a corner of one room where I put all the boxes and receipts with the things to be returned, but it's been almost two years and they're still there. Expensive things, like uggs, other shoes, hampers, toys..

It's so overwhelming.
I know I can't dictate MB what she can/can't do with her money, but I stuffed as much as I could wherever I could and the rest is still overflowing. And new things are added all the time. Nobody wants to get rid of anything, so everything that was ever bought/made, pretty much stays in the house.

I'm a very organized person, so I want to find a way for that mess to not bother me.
For example, I keep moving some of the stuff to one specific area, so we have room on the table to eat.
It's stressful sometimes, especially in the morning when there is not an inch on the kitchen counters/island/table that is not covered with crap.
And that's after me leaving the kitchen spotless at 7 p.m. the night before.

I want to find a way for this to not bother me. I want to let go, but I don't know how.
Nannies - how do you deal with messy houses? Do you clean it or work your way around it?